There's a 'secondary conflict' brewing in northern Syria that 'could easily spin out of control'

Fighters
of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) carry their
weapons at a military training camp in Ras al-Ain, February 13,
2015.Rodi
Said/Reuters

Two Syrian Kurds were shot dead by a former member of the Free
Syrian Army (FSA) earlier this month, in what the
executioner said was a response to
an incident last month in which the Kurdish People's
Protection Units (YPG) killed around 50 FSA fighters and
transported them back to Kurdish territory in an open-top
trailer.

Tensions
have flared as images of both incidents — which could not be
independently verified — circulated on social media until the
FSA-aligned rebel group Jaysh al-Thuwar disavowed the alleged
murder of the Kurdish civilians as a "crime" by a disgruntled
former FSA fighter.

"The offender was fired by the rebels a month ago," the
group said in a statement published on its website, calling the
incident "a false military operation."

The incident is symbolic, however, of the mutual distrust that
continues to cast a shadow over the Kurdish-Arab relationship in
northern Syria, even as the Obama
administration has tried to bring Arab and Kurdish forces
together to fight the Islamic State.

That fragile partnership was tested again on Saturday,
when the US' top military
commander, General Joseph Votel,
visited Kurdish commanders in northern Syria to
discuss the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces' plans to
retake territory from ISIS. The visit reportedly
prompted fury from Syrian Arab rebels, who are wary of the
US' support for the SDF.

“The Arab fighters are just camouflage,” General
Salim Idris, the former FSA chief of staff,
told Voice of America on Monday. “The SDF is the
YPG, which collaborates with anyone — Assad, the Russians, the
Americans — when it suits its purposes."

He added: "I really don’t think the Obama administration
has thought this through. Will the Kurds give up Arab towns they
capture?” he said.

Kurdish
members of the Self-Defense Forces stand near the Syrian-Turkish
border in the Syrian city of al-Derbasiyah during a protest
against the operations launched in Turkey by government security
forces against the KurdsThomson
Reuters

Hassan Hassan, a Syrian journalist andresident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East
Policy, addressed the "secondary conflict"
brewing between Arabs and Kurds in
The National last week.

"Amnesty International has in seven months issued two major
reports highlighting allegations of war crimes by rebel and
Kurdish forces in northern Syria," Hassan, who cowrote
"ISIS:
Inside the Army of
Terror," noted. "The two
reports are related toa secondary conflict brewing
between Arabs and Kurds from Hasakah to Qamashli to Aleppo, which
could easily spin out of control and add to the many conflicts
that already plague the country."

Kurdish and Arab fighters have a long history of mutual distrust
that peaked between 2012 and 2013, when the Kurdish People's
Protection Units (YPG) battled FSA-aligned rebel groups for
control over the Syrian city of Ras al-Ayn.

Those tensions have reemerged over the past eight months. The
YPG-controlled neighborhood of Sheikh Maqsood has come under
siege by both Syrian government forces and the rebels, with
reports emerging that the rebels have committed war crimes
against the neighborhood's Kurds.

In March, an intense battle between Kurds and rebels in
Aleppo punctured the relative calm that had been forged by the
cessation-of-hostilities agreement brokered by the US and Russia
one month earlier.

Reuters

The rivalry has put the US in a difficult position. The YPG has
proven to be the most effective force fighting ISIS on the ground
in northern Syria, but the territorial expansion their victories
have afforded them is vehemently opposed by Turkey, an important
US ally and member of NATO.

Ankara views Kurdish demands for autonomy as a threat to Turkey's
sovereignty. It backs many of the rebel groups that have clashed
with the YPG.

Complicating the situation further is the High Negotiations
Committee's (HNC)
insistence that it should be the only opposition group
represented at peace talks in Geneva, where multiple attempts to
forge a political solution to the more than five-year war have
failed. The HNC is a Saudi-backed coalition of Syrian
opposition groups created in Riyadh in December 2015.

Turkey has also objected, citing the Kurdish insurgency it is
battling in its southeast.

Fighters
from the Democratic Forces of Syria carry their weapons in
al-Shadadi town, in Hasaka province, Syria, February 26,
2016.REUTERS/Rodi
Said

The US-backed SDF was supposed to alleviate Turkey's anxiety
by incorporating some Arab and Turkmen groups to offset Kurdish
influence. But the SDF was established by members of Euphrates
Volcano — a coalition that included certain FSA factions but was
dominated by the Kurdish YPG — and has since clashed with the
FSA's 13th division near the strategically important Azaz corridor.

"The US may not want to jeopardise its relationship with a
force that has helped it win key tactical battles against ISIL in
Syria, but the unconditional support for the YPG is irresponsible
because it creates unnecessary conflicts and undermines the
long-term war against extremists," said
Hassan.

Not everyone would agree that the US's support for the YPG is
"unconditional." And the case could be made that the US decision
to gamble its relationship with Turkey — which has been accused repeatedly of turning a blind eye to
ISIS' illicit activities — in favor of a closer relationship
with the fiercely anti-ISIS YPG was a strategic move.

Still,Washington's insistence that supporting
the group is key to defeating ISIS
was complicated in February, when YPG forces further west
appeared to beactively coordinating with Russia to
recapture territory taken by anti-Assad rebels near Azaz.

People
carry a banner and wave Free Syrian Army flags while attending an
antigovernment protest in the rebel-held town of Dael, in Deraa
Governorate, Syria, March 18, 2016.Alaa Al-Faqir/Reuters

As Hassan noted, because one of the YPG's primary goals is
to expand its territory in northern Syria by linking its Afrin
canton with Jarabulus — and because it is more "anti-ISIS" than
"anti-Assad" — the group is viewed suspiciously by Turkey and
Sunni opposition groups in Syria.

"I’ve argued all along that empowering the YPGwithout doing the same for the Sunni Arab opposition would
create an acute power imbalance in northern Syria," Middle East
expert Charles Lister wrote on Twitter last week,
noting that the "imbalance may spark a conflict that could
outlast" the one between the regime and the
opposition.

"This position has nothing to do with being pro or anti
anyone," Lister said. "It’s merely the result of assessing
broader dynamics in Syria's north."